I Can Be More than This (These Marks Will Not Own Me)
by bookstvnerdlove
Summary: Series of short headcanons about Daryl, Daryl and Beth, and Daryl's scars. He can let them destroy him, or he can make a new path, forged out of old aches.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

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Sometimes they itch. They've been on his back for what seems like forever. He doesn't remember a time where there were no lines marring his back. Red, raised, criss-crossing stripes. They've grown as he's grown, changing shape ever so slightly, expanding as he has, never disappearing.

(They always seem to start making their presence known when he feels the most vulnerable. They started to itch when he was lying in the coffin, listening to Beth sing. His fingers at his lips, tracing every so lightly, mimicking exactly what he wanted to do to hers.)

The shame that he feels when Merle rips his shirt and sees, _really sees_, the truth of their father with his own eyes. The way that it makes him feel so _naked. _The anger that he feels, too, that Merle _left_ when he knew. He knew what their father was like and left anyway. He could lie to himself all that he wanted, that he didn't know it would happen to Daryl, too. But Daryl calls bullshit, 'cause there's just no way Merle was that dumb. Merle protected Merle, which he understands. But nobody protected Daryl, until he learned how. He didn't learn that until too late.

(Merle says he had to leave, or else he would've killed their father. But what was so great about _that man_ living?)

The triumph that he wanted to feel when he got his tattoos. He chose his back so he would be forced to show the scars to somebody, but it couldn't be someone local. He found a buddy who knew a guy three towns over who did tattoos. He went to that guy for a recommendation another two towns further out of the county.

(He wanted to feel triumphant, but it was so impersonal, this stranger with a needle digging into his back, he ended up not feeling much at all.)

The way the women he slept with _before_ would try to get him to lose the shirt (or the vest) and he would never comply. They would go hard and fast (or awkward and fast) (or drunk and fast), but always fast enough that he could avoid it.

(Who wants to be fully _bare_ around another person? That's not what he does.)

(Until Beth.)

The first time she notices his scars, it's really just the beginnings of one. They've had a long fight with the walkers and she sees a spot of red. She thinks it might be blood, so she rushes over, and her hands are all over his back before he can tell her that he's okay, he's not scratched or bit.

(That's the first time he really yells at her since they've become _something_. He tells her to back off and he jerks his body away from her and he can see the hurt in her eyes, but how could she really _understand_ what the markings mean? Sure she had her troubles, but they were _not_ the same.)

(He apologizes quickly, though, because he's an idiot and he knows it and he says sorry for being a dumb shit, and she tells him he better not ever call himself a dumb shit in her presence again. And that he can tell her when he's ready, or not at all, as long as he never pulls away from her like that again.)

(He shows her that night.)

The scars itch, but in a different way, a good way, as her hands trace along the raised red ridges. And she's angry at the man who put them there. And she's angry at the man who failed to protect him. But she doesn't yell or scream or call them names. She just tells him that they're part of his story, like it or not, and he's a good man.

(He still hates feeling vulnerable. But he hates it less when she's around.)

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_A/N: So I was doing some thinking as I re-watch The Walking Dead. The fact that Merle was so surprised to see Daryl's scars on his back was pretty fascinating given their ages. Now, I know Merle left when they were much younger, but they somehow met back up and were drifters, and then the zombie apocalypse happened. So in all that time, Daryl never let him see his back. I figure, the same is probably true for Daryl and women. I don't know how much this counts as fic, just some headcanons about Daryl and Beth/Daryl. I plan to expand these ideas into a series of short fics over time._


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